34th America's Cup: multihulls!

34th AC

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In my opinion, that is serious nonsense.

 

Hello Richard - I'm out often in the support crew for our local sailing club. It has dinghies, cats and a few Moths. I assure you that the Moths give us very little action. Its the cats that are the handfull. They overpower the crews, get blown into structures, they are difficult to control from the RIB if we have to, they lose crew etc etc. Its the sailors choice to be out there. I'd suggest mandatory helmet wearing before any thought was given to banning foilers!! Foilers will mature once the rules are loosened so foils can be rotated up for normal sailing and deployed in a more civilised manner etc. Its early days for foilers it will get more sensible when we build proper foilers not boats trying to be foilers (if you get my drift) ( I realise we have been foiling for decades but its early in terms of being accepted and being catered for) Cheers Peter S

 

Insurance cover for foilers is likely to be a bugbear also. ULDB multihulls are not very robust. I can see insurers refusing to cover or making the premium prohibitive for foilers and ULDB multihulls both.

Insurers are getting very wary of the big payouts multihulls tend to generate and the lighter, the more risk of damage and the more the expensive to repair if at all.

 

Tabarly's original Pen Duick was actually a rebuilt grp replica

When I was working for Derek Kelsall 35 years ago we drew curved foil daggerboard for a trimaran outriggers but I don't think it was built. However rudder and daggerboard foils were tried on Eugene Rigaduel's 54ft trimaran. It capsized sailing downwind in a gale under spi. We think the rudder foil lifted the stern in a big wave and it pitchpoled. But 35 years is a long time, so I may have got it wrong.

Doug, have you ever sailed in the Bloody Mary, or even at QMSC??

petereng. Multihulls are not allowed in the Bloody Mary. It's the Optimist sailors who have to wear helmets at our club

Richard Woods

 

For a start, MJ, it is Eric Tabarly.
I've sailed with him and a number of the hot French sailors when in Auckland, took them out sailing on local multis too.
Tabarly grew up sailing with his father's original Pen Duick - so of course he was going to continue with the traditional Fife. His formative years were aboard that exact yacht.
However and ironically, it was this traditional, "relaxed" design that killed him; long boom, rolling in a seaway, gybe, knock overboard, amateur tourist crew couldn't save him.
I don't know how you conclude the AC72's are a flawed design; okay, two of them were, but the kiwi/Italian designs are very sympathetic (for yachts sailing beyond 40 knots); their bows do the job just fine, even during hard buries on Hauraki Gulf.
However, agreed, Oracle's are still ridiculously fine ... lucky the wind change to 20 odd knots has saved them.

 

That's where I was heading towards with Doug.

The AC should be providing the greatest impetus to foilers in the history of
sailing. More so if the next series also uses them.

There seems to be no impediment to having foilers on beaches because of
real or imaginary dangers to other users, or to baby dolphins etc.
So, one would imagine, we might soon see small cats with foils for rent on
some beaches.

Are there other impediments, such as prohibitively expensive insurance,
that will prevent foilers from ever making up more than 1% of the total
of all recreational sailing vessels?

Or am I wrong in my estimate of 1% and we can expect more than 1% to be
equipped with foils?

 

Foiling Boost

How long has the AC been competing with foils? I would think perhaps the most pertinent factor to this year's race would be the safety considerations, and whether some new information about design safety has been acquired.

 

34th AC

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No, but I followed it pretty closely after the Moths won it the first time-a post from last year: http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/moth-foils-32-2-knots-37-03-mph-11209-92.html#post584317 post 1369

 

Why are so interested in the "market" ? Do you sell boats ? Well, I do not...and I do not sell Formula 1 cars, or space stations, so I guess I am free to watch F1 and the space station traversing the night sky, as it did a few days ago over my country.
Suppose they are a fad. So what ? Have nt we been occupied with fads any other time in history, or in our lives ? If it is a fad, let it die by natural causes, i.e. be extinct by not been selected by people - do not shoot at it and hope it will die because you think it should !
Are you proposing to ban any keels, so there will be no real danger for baby dolphins ? Do you believe baby dolphins can not avoid an incoming foiler - which is higher on the water than the normal fin keel of a lead mine ? Dolphins are highly intelligent social mammals, swimming along with other members of their family - they can avoid sharks, so I guess they can avoid foilers, too.
Insurance ? ? ? Insurance market thrives where there is a real or imaginary danger ! They just raise the premiums, they "persuade" the state to make insurance obligatory, and they are HAPPY ! Do not cry for the insurance brokers !
The simple fact is that the future is too complex to predict, and it does not make any sense to pray it will move towards a direction we like, and away from a direction we do not. Relax on your sofa, and enjoy the view !
Personally, I believe that technological advances are never forgotten - and even if they are banned for a number of years, for various reasons ( as the use of fire arms at the time of Samurai ), at the and they always return. Foilers are here to stay, even if they will occupy less than 1% of the market of sailboats - which is less than 1/zillionth of the total market of all the other totally "useless" things in the World !

 

No.

No.

I wasn't crying for insurance brokers. I think it's funny how they suck the life
out of people who adopt a lifestyle where they are easy prey to them.

That is not true in competitions where the fastest or most efficient methods
are often deliberately banned. E.g. Formula 1, golf, rowing, kayaking, flying,
etc etc.

Nobody, in any post here, has said they were going to disappear.

 

I was not speaking about competition = sports, I was speaking about technology itself. If it is not dangerous for the people they use it, is is not forgotten - end sometimes it is not forgotten despite being dangerous, or even because it is dangerous ( to others...).
I am also curious if those foiling techniques can be used in small powerboats...

 

From the youtube videos, I think the best viewing would be from some of the
larger buildings back a bit from the shore. You would be able to see the whole
race and how it develops. (I watched the start of the Sydney-Hobart from a
high vantage point many years ago and it was a spectacular sight)

 

.....

 

The best view I had was of the boats going through the Heads and into open water. It was like watching the smaller boats hit a wall.
I'd love to see the current AC boats in a 2m or 3m swell

 

34th AC

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I'd love to see boats like the AC 72's designed for a 2m or 3m swell!

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Well, congrads to LR -again. Artemis nailed most of their foiling gybes today-they are improving each race but have pretty much run out of time unless they can pull off a miracle tomorrow night. Inexplicably they lost the start today after winning the last two..... Sure is fun watching these things sail! Excellent NBC coverage.
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Update: spectacular Moth footage on the NBC coverage just now!